Spring Cleaning for Your Law Firm Marketing: What to Update in March

Winter makes it easy to put off things you know you need to do. It’s cold and dark outside. That makes it very easy to hibernate and procrastinate. The good news is warmer weather is right around the corner. It is time to make your spring cleaning plans. At home, closets need to be cleaned, etc. At the office, it’s time to address the stacks of papers, dusty corners, and unfiled miscellaneous documents.

While you are making your spring cleaning plans, don’t forget about your law firm’s internet marketing. Spring is an excellent time to give it a good cleaning and get rid of the cyber dust that is holding you back. At PaperStreet, we have seen the power of digital spring cleaning. Even when your law firm’s marketing plan and website are working well, a little elbow grease can improve performance and set you up for success for the rest of the year.

Start With the Website Content

Despite what most attorneys desire, not all legal content is evergreen. Legal website content tends to age quietly and sometimes quickly. Unless your firm has a dedicated person to monitor your content for freshness, chances are that you have had some things go bad on the shelf that need to be trashed.

Over time, things change. Practice areas evolve. Attorneys take on new roles. Laws and procedures change. New court decisions are issued. Content spring cleaning usually includes:

• Reviewing practice area pages to make sure they still describe what the firm actually does
• Updating language to reflect changes in the law, procedure, or focus of the practice
• Removing references to attorneys who have left or positions that no longer exist
• Trimming pages that have grown long without becoming more useful

The good news is you do not have to rewrite every piece of content on your site. Spring cleaning is not perfection. It is about getting rid of aged content and creating clarity.

Update Bios

Attorney bios see a lot of traffic. Potential clients want to know who will represent them. These pages are often among the most visited pages on a law firm’s website. Yet, somehow, they are also among the easiest to forget about. Most firms post new bios when people join and remove bios when people leave. However, the bios of the people who stay can go unchanged for years.

Spring cleaning is a good time to update bios to reflect reality:

• Confirm that stated practice areas match what attorneys are actually handling
• Add new credentials, awards, publications, or speaking engagements
• Read bios side-by-side to check for tone and consistency
• Double-check phone numbers, email addresses, and office locations

Outdated bios can sting credibility. If a potential client has formed an image of you based on a 15-year-old photo, they will wonder what else is outdated when they meet you. Outdated bios give the impression that the firm’s marketing has been put on autopilot.

Review Calls to Action and Contact Points

The best marketing plan in the world will never work if your calls to action and contact points do not hold up their end of the bargain. Calls to action are added over time. The same is true with intake forms and their access points. Worse, is when the firm’s contact information changes but is not fully updated on the website.

Your spring cleaning should focus on one question: Is it easy for someone visiting your website who is interested in your services to take the next step? This question can be best answered by looking at the following:

• Test contact forms to confirm they still work
• Confirm phone numbers and email addresses are current
• Reduce the number of competing calls to action
• Remove paths that create hesitation or confusion

Remember, the easier it is for someone to contact your firm, the more likely they are to do so. The goal of spring cleaning is to remove as many obstacles as possible.

Refresh Blog and Resource Content

Many firms post blog and resource content, then wonder whether anyone ever actually reads it. While not every effort is viewed daily, good blog content does get read. As long as blogs remain on the website, they are still viewed even after they have faded into the background of your firm’s collective memory. Older content still represents your firm and potentially shapes the first impressions of your website visitors.

Spring cleaning content usually means:

• Updating older posts that continue to receive traffic
• Removing or redirecting content that is no longer accurate or useful
• Checking links to outside sources
• Adding short updates where the law or guidance has changed
• Removing old content that contradicts fresher content

Spring cleaning and a simple update to your blog and resources will extend the life of the existing content.

Checking Local Listings and Directory Profiles

Some of the things that could go wrong with your legal marketing plan do not happen on your website. Directory listings and local profiles play a significant role in helping potential clients find your website. They also shape the impressions clients form of you. It is easy to set up professional profiles and then forget them. Addresses and phone numbers change over time, and practice descriptions become out of sync with what the firm currently does.

This is what should be on your spring cleaning list for this area:

• Review Google Business and legal directory listings for accuracy
• Confirm addresses, phone numbers, and office hours
• Remove outdated descriptions or practice areas
• Look for duplicate or conflicting listings

Making sure that your information is consistent across platforms will build trust with clients and also avoid unnecessary confusion.

Take a Quick Look at Analytics

As part of your spring cleaning, it is time to review your analytics. Often, lawyers will avoid things that they do not fully understand. Analytics sometimes fall into this category. The good news is that you do not need to be an expert to get value out of analytics. Instead of deep diving, look to the surface patterns. They can show some obvious signals:

• Which pages receive the most traffic
• Where visitors tend to leave the site
• Whether mobile usage continues to increase

You do not need to understand every number on the dashboard to use your analytics. The knowledge you gain from these simple insights will help you to guide the rest of the year’s marketing campaign.

Don’t Like to Clean? Contact PaperStreet for Assistance

Whether it is household spring cleaning or the digital variety, the real satisfaction comes from a job well done. When you look around and know that you have made progress, it simply feels good. The added benefit of a digital spring cleaning is that it will set the tone for your law firm’s internet marketing for the rest of the year. With all of the cobwebs out of the corners and the dust bunnies removed from under the bed, your website will be ready to go for the spring and summer.

At PaperStreet, we have seen how effective spring cleaning can be for our clients. So much so that, for many, it becomes an annual tradition. Maybe it would be going too far to say that law firms look forward to it, but the value is in the satisfaction of having done it. Need help? Contact us today to make a plan.